#64 – Escape Sequences in String Literals

C# allows embedding special (often non-printable) characters into a string literal using an escape sequence.  An escape sequence is a series of characters that begins with a backslash (\), followed by one or more letters or digits.

Here’s an example of embedding several newline characters into a string, so that it’s printed on three different lines.

 Console.Write("First line\nSecond line\nThird line\n");     // 3 lines

Full list of escape sequences in C#:

• \a  –  Bell (alert)
• \b  –  Backspace
• \f  –  Formfeed
• \n  –  New line
• \r  –  Carriage return
• \t  –  Horizontal tab
• \v  –  Vertical tab
• \’  –  Single quote
• \”  –  Double quote
• \\  –  Backslash
• (Backslash followed by 0) – Null
• \xhh  –  ASCII character in hex
• \xhhhh  –  Unicode character in hex
• \uhhhh – Unicode character  (4-byte)
• \Uhhhhhhhh – Unicode surrogate pair (8-byte)